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Farms, More Productive Than Ever, Are Poisoning Drinking Water in Rural America
- spking 8y agohttps://outline.com/s8fvyz https://outline.com/s8fvyz
- wedn3sday 8y agoThe hero we need.
- brendansafr 8y agomore props for this guy!
- rmason 8y agoLots of times farmers, especially in the winter don't want to haul manure any distance so it gets spread on fields nearest the barn. In Michigan over twenty years ago farmers by law had to come up with manure management plans. Composting became popular because it would eliminate the water so you needed to make far fewer trips to those distant fields. Customers I worked with in the late nineties realized the need for the law and accepted it. However there were a few large farms that chose not to cooperate and were fined pretty much out of existence. Sounds like this is what needs to be done nationally.
- pstuart 8y agoBio-digesters and gasifiers would provide some energy independence and drastically reduce pollution (think of all of those hog shit lagoons out there...) That is a perfect zero-interest funding opportunity.
- waffle_ss 8y agoInterestingly, the CAFO I wrote about in another comment has a manure bio-digester, and they ended up disconnecting it years ago because it broke down so often / didn't work. I believe the thing costed over $1M, although I don't know how much was paid for by the CAFO versus the electric company.
- pstuart 8y agoThat's disappointing to hear. I still think that it's probably the best approach to deal with the problem if it worked properly; it would behoove us all if the technology could become cheaper and more reliable.
- rdlecler1 8y agoNo one wants to pay upfront.
- pstuart 8y agoExactly. The zero-interest loan would be the government paying up front. It would be a good investment if done correctly.
- starpilot 8y agoOur planet is dying.
- godzillabrennus 8y agoTechnically our planet will be fine even if there is manure in human water supplies. We could even go insane and nuke ourselves into oblivion by having every society launch every nuclear weapon at one another. Even in the face of such a catastrophe the Earth would be here afterward. Albeit in a vastly different form that is incompatible with human life. Climate change is basically our way of saying that the environment for human life is being adversely impacted. Doesn't really matter how because if we don't start to make the environment better for human life we won't be able to live on this planet any longer.
- escherplex 8y agoCouple the above article with Crisis on the High Plains: The Loss of America’s Largest Aquifer – the Ogallala URL = http://duwaterlawreview.com/crisis-on-the-high-plains-the-loss-of-americas-largest-aquifer-the-ogallala/ http://duwaterlawreview.com/crisis-on-the-high-plains-the-lo... Does seem like we're running on fumes.
- kickout 8y agoInteresting, will read later. Odd that TX has the greatest depletion. As a NE resident, was under impression Ogallala was back to 2010 levels after 2012 drought hit it bad.
- waffle_ss 8y agoMy own family's dairy farm with 60 head of milking cows is currently set to go bust in the springtime. There's always been a steady drip of family dairy farms going bust but the pace has really picked up over the last few years with milk prices being so low. Meanwhile there's a CAFO less than a mile down the road from them with over 5,000 head of milking cows that continues to grow and gobble up all the farmland in the area. They've had multiple manure spills, one of which ran down the hill onto my parents' land, into the creek that runs through their land and killed all the water life (that one they got a small fine from the EPA for). They have literal manure lagoons that they don't know what to do with. Right now they're getting permits to put in pipelines to move it around. I always wanted to move back near my folks but I worry about the drinking water quality due to this CAFO, with the probable high nitrates from spills and the high capacity wells sucking out all the drinking water. I shudder to think of what would happen if the planned manure pipeline burst somewhere and a large amount of manure seeped out underground before being noticed. edit: I'm currently writing a blog post about this that I will post here next week; there is a lot of interesting tidbits to the story including the failure of farmer and dairy cooperatives. There is another post on the front page right now about Costco's vertical integration with chicken farms; well Wal-Mart is doing the same thing with dairy.[1] edit2: A commenter had asked why my folks didn't go organic but deleted the comment before I could reply. We have some family friends who did that (organic crops as well), and it worked for a time, but the CAFOs have caught up on that as well.[2] Their story is very similar to this gentleman's: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/dairy-farming-is-dying-after-40-years-im-out/2018/12/21/79cd63e4-0314-11e9-b6a9-0aa5c2fcc9e4_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/dairy-farming-is-dyin... [1]: https://www.dairyherd.com/walmart https://www.dairyherd.com/walmart [2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/why-your-organic-milk-may-not-be-organic/2017/05/01/708ce5bc-ed76-11e6-9662-6eedf1627882_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/why-your-org...
- onetimemanytime 8y agoSorry to hear about the farm. Can you talk a little about the financial aspects...cost, milk price etc of your small farm? Do larger farms make a little on each cow but multiplied by 5000 ends up being a decent sum? I guess buying tractors, building sheds etc might be more cost effective with larger farms--spread over more. Also pricing power.
- apacheCamel 8y agoFood availability is important, and productive farms help realize that but it comes at a cost. As a society, we are pushing the boundaries in so many areas with respect to the environment and we are really starting to see the consequences for these actions. I feel like there are many possible solutions to these problems but very few are actually viable and widely accepted. Big farms aren't going to accept the limitations we want to place on them and people aren't going to let them continue to destroy the environment around them. In my own opinion, money means nothing if we can't live long enough to use it.
- onetimemanytime 8y agoThis probably adds a cent or two to the gallon. Or a small number. They simply want to cut as many corners as possible to squeeze the last penny. State has to intervene.
- rdlecler1 8y agoYou make it sound like farmers make a lot of money. Most don’t. They have to squeeze every penny to survive—and that’s in the good years. They often run in the red in bad years.
- kickout 8y agoNitrogen runoff is huge problem. Multi-billion dollar idea? Autonomous tractors applying N only when the plant needs it (a couple small 2 week windows). Cant wait for the startup to bring this to market
- jelliclesfarm 8y agoHappening. Depleted phosphorus in the soil is a greater risk and will be a problem. Phosphorus is a non renewable resource.
- breatheoften 8y agoIs it surprising that nitrogen runoff is a thing? Something like 7% of world energy use goes into making nitrogen for farming — why is it that we don’t have efficient methodology for adding it to soil at a rate which does not exceed the soil uptake rate — is fertilizer cost not a pretty clear resource cost that _someone_ would find value in reducing even without considering the (non-priced) externalities ...?
- jpm_sd 8y agoI've been wondering lately if there is a profitable business model to be made out of this problem. Could you collect manure from giant dairies and hog farms, and use solar-thermal-assisted pyrolysis to break down harmful compounds and kill bacteria? Turn it into more generic chemical feedstock / fertilizer? Maybe once the Gates Foundation sorts out toilets they can work on this next.
- ForrestN 8y agoThe Vox series on Netflix has an exceptionally good story about the water crisis generally. I left with the impression that right now water is not priced appropriately, and the solution is to impose more normal market pricing on water market by market. If you live in a rural area where it's hard to get access to water, or where your water usage requires elaborate cleanup to maintain the water supply, you should have to pay way more.
- LeanderK 8y agothis doesn't seem like fair thing to do at all. Clean water-acess is a basic human right, market forces should not determine who pays how much. Think of children of poor families born into areas where clean water is expensive...i don't want to imagine the consequences.
- coryrc 8y agoWater for human consumption costs are mostly in purifying and distribution, and are already charged. Water for agriculture is often subsidized and not limited from preventing environmental destruction (aquifer over-drawing, f.ex.)
- ForrestN 8y agoI don't think the idea is to make individuals pay market rates for drinking water, but rather commercial water users, especially industrial and agricultural projects.
- QML 8y agoThis. It’s conflicting to see that people who use water for basic needs have a higher water bill than farmers who use it for commercial purposes, and due to the lack of market pricing for bulk water are not incentivized to conserve water even in drought conditions.
- Wowfunhappy 8y agoIs this significantly worse than food being subject to market forces? Both are needed to live. I dearly wish there was enough food and water to go around (and the data says there likely could be, if people in developed nations changed our lifestyles†). But, here we are. Drinking water is likely to become more scarce in the future if we don't get climate change other control. †I'm 100% complicit in this too, btw.
- yholio 8y ago> Farmers can’t produce milk and cheese at the low prices American consumers have grown accustomed to without some effect on water, says [an industry mouthpiece]. “The alternative here,” he says, “is a society that depends upon other countries to feed us.” What a crock of bullshit, if I may say so. US has a surplus of agricultural products and is a massive exporter to the point where it perturbs world markets, some 140 billions per year. This is true for many advanced economies that subsidize agriculture in various ways to protect food security and rural employment, for example the EU, and is frequently contested by poor economies dependent on cash crop exports to finance healthcare, etc. The typical reaction of any industry when an ecologic issue is reported is to ignore it, then deny it, then lobby forcefully that tying to fix it will destroy the national economy. And then they grudgingly comply and there is no economic catastrophe.
- sailfast 8y agoMy understanding is that there is an oversupply of Dairy in the country right now due to reduced demands for things like Milk and American cheese. The stockpile of American Cheese is at an all-time high and they're converting to this cheese to get their surplus into a more long-term store of value. Not sure why we would continue to subsidize this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/28/americas-cheese-stockpile-just-hit-an-all-time-high/?utm_term=.68abec4aab39 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/28/ameri...
- vkou 8y agoWe subsidize foods because most of the people in our government have read their histories, and know that instability in food pricing and availability is a great way to bring about a domestic regime change.
- zackmorris 8y agoAgree 100%, this is as old as politics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses Which gives me some optimism. Things are quite bad in the US right now for people in the bottom 3 quintiles (compared to where we would be if it hadn't been for vulture capitalism which started in the early 80s). I remember when they weren't as bad as today. In the early 80s the debt was a paltry $3 billion and minimum wage had a buying power equivalent to perhaps $15-20 per hour today in rural America. Where I live, republicans are in charge of farming, but the political split is about 30% left-leaning. We're unlikely to see a significant increase in food prices even with inflation. But I feel that republican politicians have broken the social contract of providing basic needs and good-paying jobs for their constituents. And democratic politicians have largely abandoned their base (which used to be labor). Gasoline costs perhaps 1/4 of what it would if externalities were included (like in Europe). Same with foods like meat, dairy or anything else that becomes environmentally unfriendly under factory farming. This is all by design to keep the masses satiated. It's cheap so it can't be disrupted.
- mattdeboard 8y agoI have learned a lot about agriculture, sustainability of same, insights on & analysis of family & corporate farming, I from following Dr. Sarah Taber on Twitter. She does a lot of threads discussing food & food production. Here's a link to one I pulled basically at random from near the top of her feed. https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/1086295760507949063 https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/108629576050794906...
- waffle_ss 8y agoDr. Taber works with fruit and vegetable farms. She's extremely biased and aggressive to the point of derangement when it comes to anything dairy-related.
- waffle_ss 8y agoDownvote away but it's true; she says as much herself: https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/1057075178788831232 https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/105707517878883123... If you just read her Twitter feed[1] you'll get plenty of great hits, like dismissing the farmer who farmed for 40 years and went bust I linked to elsewhere because he was a) white (!) b) was planning on "cash[ing] out" earlier (she somehow knows this after discussing the issue with "colleagues," nevermind the huge pattern backing up this story's vignette). Her answer to the dairy crisis is just "grow something else,"[2] which I can tell you with firsthand knowledge is beyond flippant. You don't think farmers that are committing suicide at record levels perhaps considered this? Scroll back and you'll see plenty of hyperbolic drivel. [1]: https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=from%3ASarahTaber_bww%20dairy https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=from%... [2]: https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/1046932325639102464 https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/104693232563910246...
- mattdeboard 8y agoWho are you addressing? I actually upvoted you for your original response. I got that you didn't agree from the first response though.
- brooklyntribe 8y agoThe majority of Americans have brain damage of some kind from toxic organic pesticides. This is why people are so weird. Look for the twitches and shakes, that the indicator. Especially facial muscles around the eyes. We've all been poisoned. The organic chemists have known this for years. The upside? Cheap corn. Now what? Source: Former organic chemist who was exposed to toxic organic pesticides. [a light dose]
- kickout 8y agoGeez dude. Agree chemical are not ideal, but is $10 USD a gallon milk ideal? Hope you dont use a cell phone because of the radiation.
- timerol 8y agoIf milk was $10 USD, it would encourage people to eat in ways that are cheaper to produce. Cheaper to produce unsubsidized lines up reasonably well with good for the environment (more vegetarian and vegan foods). I'm always surprised that milk is cheaper than canned beans on a calories per dollar basis, given the cows, pasteurization, and refrigeration needed.
- linuxftw 8y agoThis is correct. Additionally, many of the subsidies for agricultural businesses go to the largest player. That's why your local diary farm's milk is $8+/gallon versus the grocery store.
- jelliclesfarm 8y agoYes. Good food should cost a little more than what it takes to grow it + a profit. Like any other business.
- corey_moncure 8y agoThis is very plausible. Consider how the rise and fall of tetraethyl lead in gasoline corresponds perfectly with historical incidence and subsidence of violent crime, with the exact delay you'd expect to account for the time to physical maturity of a developing person. Can you link to any example videos of symptoms to be aware of?
- DennisP 8y agoWe hear about lab-grown meat but lab-grown dairy is actually easier, and at least one company is starting to commercialize it this year, providing milk proteins from yeast to food manufacturers. Milk and cheese for consumers would still be easier than lab-grown meat, which requires actual cells instead of just proteins, fats, and sugars. The advantage of course is that lab-grown requires far less physical resources than animals, thus helping to alleviate environmental problems. Prices may be higher at first due to capital expenses but should drop significantly at scale. (The recent book Clean Meat has a chapter on dairy.)
- jelliclesfarm 8y agoWhat about broth? I think the lab meat market is missing a very valuable ingredient. A lot of times, the collagen and the umami in meat is extracted in the broth. It has amazing depth of flavour and texture. And the nutritional benefits of bone broth is highly desirable. It’s not same as stock cubes or vegetable broth. Having fish fumet or a rich pork trotter broth substitute with just flakes of meat is a chef’s dream.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- DennisP 8y agoBroth is an interesting idea. As a liquid it seems like it'd be a relatively simple product. The questions I can think of are (1) how big is the market, (2) how hard would it be to get competitive, and (3) how much impact would it have? If broth today is mostly made from byproducts of meat production, then it's probably pretty cheap to produce and we might as well keep doing that until we get rid of that meat production.
- sedachv 8y agoLivestock feces runoff into irrigation water is also responsible for most cases of fruit and vegetable E. Coli contamination (such as the recent one of lettuce: https://www.independent.com/news/2018/dec/14/adam-brothers-farm-identified-e-coli-outbreak/ https://www.independent.com/news/2018/dec/14/adam-brothers-f...) E. Coli is not a normal plant pathogen (it does not infect a plant even if it comes in contact with the roots), and is only able to survive in soil for a couple of weeks. There are claims that E. Coli outbreaks have been caused by wild animals such as deer (https://www.ecoliblog.com/e-coli-outbreaks/deer-poop-conclusively-linked-to-strawberry-e-coli-outbreak/ https://www.ecoliblog.com/e-coli-outbreaks/deer-poop-conclus...), however, no mention is ever made of alternative hypotheses. What do you think is more likely: dozens/hundreds of acres of crop being infected by a handful of deer strolling through and leaving some droppings, or the deer drinking the infected irrigation water and contracting the E. Coli, which shows up in their droppings? How much do you think the likelihood changes if you know that the E. Coli is antibiotic resistant (cows are continually fed antibiotics, primarily because it makes them grow faster)? There are even more outlandish claims about birds (apparently geese are now supposed to be tactical precision bombers targeting our food supply with biological weapons). This wild-animals theory also fails to explain why every single crop field is not continuously infected with E. Coli from rodent droppings from the hundreds or even thousands of mice, rats, and other rodents that live in and around the fields.
- Fomite 8y agoAt least one outbreak was attributed to wild pigs. Also, the outbreak investigators for these things are well aware of the alternate hypotheses, and water and machine-driven contamination is often investigated. And no, geese aren't precise. But they do shit a lot.
- rblion 8y agoWhat's the point of all this technological progress if our bodies grow sick from the pollution? Food for thought.
- jelliclesfarm 8y agoI agree. Farming for food is not an ideal way to get calories and nutrients into the human body. I really hope we can create a nutritional lab concoction like a broth which has a baseline nutritional value. And can be customized for people with deficiencies or special dietary requirements.
- jessaustin 8y agoI sympathize with this guy, but 123' is a really shallow well. If the neighboring dairies were smart (little evidence of that in TFA), they would have paid to get a 400-footer drilled (and grouted) for him 18 years ago when the problem first showed up. Better yet, why don't they just set up a local sewer and water district so they can have one professionally maintained (and deep) well that serves the community? In one sense this guy is lucky. Multiple parties at both the local and state levels care about his situation. When we tried to get MO DNR to force a local truck stop to cease pouring undiluted trucker shit downhill into the Gasconade River, my neighbors and I struck out completely.
- zdragnar 8y agoA 400 foot well? That'd be what, 15, 20 grand, including the casing to prevent contamination? I can see that being a smart move for the dairy farm to offer to neighbors, but that's a ton of money to do on your own initiative unless you're mortgaging new construction. (Better than drinking contaminated water, but still...)
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoLast time I had anything to do with a well it was "$5k no matter how deep I go" (granted that was paid in cash) and it was 500ft or so.
- zdragnar 8y agoThat's pretty great pricing, though to add in protective piping to avoid contamination from shallower waters is an added cost. Almost built a house about 2 miles from an old garbage dump site, and the estimate for a shallower well than that was around $12k
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoThis was in a low cost of living area in a low-regulation state. Paying cash was what made the price fixed regardless of depth.
- theoh 8y agoImages of the landscape of intensive cattle farming: https://mishkahenner.com/Feedlots https://mishkahenner.com/Feedlots
- Fomite 8y agoI moved to a rural area and the real estate agent was going on and on about how, since this was farm country, you knew the air was clear and the water pure. It was all I could do not to laugh.